


Striking Out Alone

by Leamas



Series: Striking Out Alone [1]
Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Bright family drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: It was a mistake, getting in the car with them. He hadn’t called. They’d known where he would be. But was there anywhere else that he could go? No, and he’d been with the Foundation long enough to know the dangers of striking out alone. Not everyone could be Claire, after all.





	Striking Out Alone

The rain splattered down on the windshield, and Jack Bright shivered. He’d driven north, far enough that he was out of the desert, where he abandoned his car and walked. It didn’t take long before a car pulled up beside him, asking if he needed a lift. Hours later and his hair and clothes were still damp, sticking to him like a second skin. The heat blasting in his face only made the alienation worse. The most concrete thing that he felt was the pain in his arm, where he’d unburied the tracking chip. It was lucky that he hadn’t needed to take an MTF’s body; they had trackers in their spine, and that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with on short notice.

“I chose her for two reasons,” Bright said, in answer to Claire’s question. What was likely to be the hardest part was now over, but after years of secrecy the prospect of discussing it was just as daunting. “First—she was a biologist specialising in genetic engineering. The other reason was that she’s reserved. No one dislikes her, but she flies under everyone’s radar. There was no one to notice if she started acting strangely.” No one to miss her, no one to kick up a fuss—but better not think of it that way.

“When did you decide to do it?” Claire asked.

“A decade ago, I guess,” Bright said. Then he thought about it. “Although really, you could say that I’ve been doing this since ’72, when an O5s went rogue. I never did find out which one. This isn’t something that I was meant to know, but Mikell—things are said, sometimes more than he means, especially when it’s to family. And I was his man on the inside. He told me more as a warning, but I got the message. The O5 Council likes to present itself as one cohesive unit, but each of them has their own priorities. They aren’t above playing dirty to see themselves right—what Mikell asks of me isn’t just what one brother might ask another.”

Even talking to Claire, it felt strange to call Mikell by name. It had been almost a century since he’d been allowed to do so freely.

“He wanted to have his edge—me—but the cost was that he had to tell me what to keep an eye out for. So he warns me that there might be conflicting interests at the top of the Foundation, and tells me to keep an eye out—I hear, ‘ _remember the Chaos Insurgency_?’ If a schism can happen once, it can happen again.

“I was just thinking ahead. The Jack Bright at the time figured that he was in a vulnerable position, with his Level 4 Clearance and a reputation that proceeded him,” Bright said. “So discretely, he made a back-up. One on each of the main sites, a few scattered throughout different task forces. Mikell likely knew. It isn’t like he doesn’t keep his own private copies, that he hopes we forgot about.”

“How did you do it?” David asked from the backseat.

It was impossible to tell how much either of them knew, but if he had to take a guess—Claire more or less had the gist of what had happened; David only knew that it would come to this. They were clairvoyants, not mind-readers. It would be a tall order to ask them to look into Bright’s reasoning for what he did, particularly if he wasn’t even entirely sure himself. Especially not the early days, before this current iteration even existed.

“The Jack Bright of ’72 made an identical copy of the amulet, then passed the original on to his target. After a month he’d take it back. After a few years…”

“How many were there, in total?”

“When he created me,” Bright said, immediately disliking how he’d phrased that but unwilling to take his words back, “there were already eight. He’s had to recycle bodies since, and I’m sure there are more.”

“And how did you come to be in possession of this body?” Claire asked.

“I decided that the Foundation was no longer compatible with my beliefs,” Bright said. “To get away, though, it would be necessary to have a body that the other Jacks, and—let’s be real—Mikell, didn’t know about. I transferred my conscious to this body, and after I confirmed that it worked, killed off the other one.”

“You transferred your conscious without the amulet,” David said. “Or did you just have the balls to steal it from under your own nose?”

“I’ve studied the amulet for over a century,” Bright said. “I know more its properties than anyone else alive. And no—before you ask, no one else in the Foundation knows. There has never been a version of Jack Bright that believed the Foundation could be trusted with this knowledge.” Spoken bitterly, like the final word on the subject that wasn’t being argued. A point about the Foundation, or about the nature of the amulet?

They’d been driving for hours, listening to music when they could pick something up on the radio and listening to the rain. The view got repetitive after a while, but after escaping from Site 17 and the vast Nevada desert, Bright was eager to take in whatever trees and rain and slick, glossy roads he could find.

“So you chose to cut and run,” Claire prompted.

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked. “Did something happen that changed your mind, brother?”

“A lot happened,” he said, “but no more to me than to any of the replicas. I was just in a unique position.”

“You were their slave.”

“I said that I was in a unique position,” he snapped, hating the way she said that, hating the implications. He was here now, wasn’t he? Here of his own free will. “Something about the amulet that apparently doesn’t come across very well is how it works. It doesn’t pour my soul into another body like a funnel—it’s more like the world’s most fucked up copy-machine. And sometimes what comes out isn't a perfect copy, and I guess my error was that I no longer found the Foundation’s ideology compatible with my own. But I guess it was my ideology that was the error, because the Foundation’s ideology and Jack Bright’s ideology were the same things. Still are, for that matter.”

Claire waited. Bright knew not what precisely his younger sister was waiting for, but many possible unasked questions sprang to mind: the practical ones requiring long-winded answers, the strategic ones about the Foundation that would benefit Claire and the Serpent’s Hand somewhere down the line, and the personal questions. All of these questions were shortly followed by answers that he felt currently unwilling to give.

“The way you two talk about the Foundation,” Bright said, unable to stand the silence now that he’d successfully cut and run, as Claire had put it, “is wrong. I didn’t give them so much of my life because I was obligated to. No one forced me to do anything. I wasn’t their slave. I agreed with it. Normalcy at all costs. I mean, would you want something like this to get out into the world? Imagine the hell that would follow.”

“Do you think that we deserve to be locked up?” David asked from the backseat. “Or killed?”

“Of course not,” Bright said. “But the two of you aren’t…”

“We’re not strangers,” Claire suggested.

“We’re not alarming to look at,” David said. “At least, not when I have my glasses on. When you can’t see the two gaping holes where my eyes should be, courtesy of your brother’s efforts to make me ‘normal’.”

Bright had nothing to say to that.

Claire was not struck by the same silence. “Something made you change your mind," she said. “It wasn’t anything I said, or what happened to David—what happened to TJ didn’t particularly move you, either.”

“I did what was best for him.”

“Would he say the same, if he could?”

“It was to protect him,” Bright said. “Everything I ever did was to protect him, my god! In the thirties, do you know what I saw? There was a breach—a bad one. Some agent was mortally wounded. Knowing this, he went looking for our brother and… and he took his hands… he didn’t even have the chance to realise what was going to happen before it did. Could you imagine what people would do to him if he were out there?”

“He was locked up then,” Claire said. “You still failed to protect him, even when he was under lock and key in Site 19. He’s still locked up, still vulnerable. Only now, you’ve inflicted something else on him.”

“It’s an act of mercy,” Bright said. “Would you want to live like he does, knowing what was happening?”

“It’s your mistake,” Claire said, “to assume that he’s unaware.”

Bright drew in a deep breath, suddenly angry. He looked at her, and to David in the rear-view mirror. It was a mistake, getting in the car with them. He hadn’t called. They’d known where he would be. But was there anywhere else that he could go? No, and he’d been with the Foundation long enough to know the dangers of striking out alone. Not everyone could be Claire, after all.

“How much further?”

“Long enough,” she said pleasantly. “We’ll be stopping soon, though. There are some security measures to take care of.”

“Right,” he said. “This is a risk, isn’t it?”

“More than you know.”

Bright was surprised how tired he was, how his body sunk into the seats of Claire’s car, the sound of the rain and the windshield wipers lulling him to sleep with their familiarity. It had been too long since he’d felt rain on his skin, even if it made him damp and slimy. He’d been in Nevada for too long, in Site 17. With most of his life spent underground he’d just been grateful for what fresh air he could get, no matter how dry and dusty. Only now was he realising how much he missed the rain, how safe he felt hearing it.

He was also surprised when Claire pulled into a layby.

Bright sat up, looking around the car. They were somewhere in Idaho, down some beaten track, no towns or houses around for miles. He saw no one else on the road, but that didn’t mean Claire hadn’t.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Security,” she said, unlocking the doors and opening her door. “You might want to come with me.”

“What’s this about?” Bright said, not moving.

But the door slammed shut, and with only the headlights he watched as she circled around to the trunk of the car. Through the back mirror he watched as she stood, the rain pouring down over her, making it harder for him to see her but nonetheless he knew that Claire was looking into the car at him.

“Go on,” David said.

“Are you coming?” he asked. “Or just staying where it’s warm?”

“Where it’s warm.” David grinned. “Now go. Bring your gun.”

Standing in the rain proved to be as cold and wet as he’d thought it would be, with fat drops of water soaking him instantly. He let himself feel it in his hair and clothes as he walked around to join Claire, wiping away the drops of water on his eyelashes when he gave her a nod. He held the gun uselessly at his side.

“Have that ready when I open this,” she said. She reached down to grab the latch of the trunk, then cryptically added, “I do hope you won’t have to use it.”

“You’d know, though, wouldn’t you?”

“It could go a few ways,” she said. “But that depends entirely on how you react.”

Bright was suddenly aware that he needed them more than he needed a gun. That this was dangerous and that there were risks and that without Claire, without David, he’d be alone. No Foundation, no family. The risk of striking out alone didn’t scare him, or the risk of some inevitable end that he still would to one day have to face—it was just that he’d never been on his own before, and the last time he could even pretend as much was well over a century ago.

Bright readied the gun.

Claire opened the trunk.

He drew a breath.

She said, “So how much of that did you hear?”

When all 6’ of a man was curled in the trunk of the car, cornered and with a gun in his face, it severely limited how intimidating a man could look. Draven Kondraki’s face was the face of an agent, and that left Bright lightheaded as he remembered what Draven was trained to do, what agents were trained to do, what agents’ bodies were capable of. What was embedded in the spine of every Mobile Task Force agent.


End file.
